Even with a young team, the Ravenna Ravens boys’ tennis team’s perseverance continued to propel them to success. The Ravens finished in fourth place at the Metro Athletic Conference tournament by scoring 27 points last Wednesday at Ravenna High School.
“We still have new players and relied heavily on our singles players to help us get a lot of points and it helped us win throughout the season,” said Coach Brittany Kohanski. “I feel like a lot of weight was on the singles players this year and I appreciate their efforts in every single match.”
Ravenna finished their regular season with a 4-6 record in dual matches against their conference rivals to place third and its solid performance at the MAC tournament resulted in a fourth place finish overall for the season.
Sophomore Preston Hatcher took fifth place at first singles by posting a 1-1 record. Hatcher dueled against Cloverleaf senior Dhevan Sivapatham in the first round and lost 6-1, 4-6, 6-2.
“Preston played him twice and the first time Preston beat him, it was in the third set tiebreaker and the second time Perston lost in straight sets so I knew it would be close and they play a very similar game,” noted the eighth-year coach.
According to Kohanski, after Hatcher battled back to win the second set 6-4 and even the score, Sivapatham played a disciplined third set and made very few mistakes, propelling him past the Ravens’ sophomore. Hatcher rebounded with a commanding 8-0 victory in the fifth place match against Field’s Kaden Schrader.
Junior Derek Skilton anchored Ravenna in second singles, going 1-2 to take fourth place. He won his first round match when he outdueled Woodridge senior Austin Dunaj 7-6, 6-4. In the first match, Skilton rallied from being down 5-6 to ultimately best his conference foe in a tiebreaker and once again persevered in the second set, battling from a 0-3 hole to outlast Dunja 6-4.
“That was a good one,” said Kohanski. “It was an upset because he did not beat him this season, but he actually played really well in that first match.”
Skilton was ousted from the championship bracket when he dropped his semifinal match 6-0, 6-0 to senior Jackson Davis from Norton and lost the third place match against Akron Coventry junior Andrew Naugle.
Kohanski said that a lot of the points in Skilton’s third-place match were close but Naugle baited Skilton into making more unforced errors.
In third singles, senior Lily Schofield took third place by recording a 2-1 record.
Schofield captured a 6-2, 6-4 victory in the first round against Field’s Caleb Wirth but was defeated 6-1, 6-1 in the semifinal by junior Cayden Smelser from Norton.
Schofield finished strong by beating Woodridge’s Luke Farrar 6-0, 6-2 in the third place match.
“She played hard and smart and sometimes likes to overanalyze things, but she stepped up when she had to get the points that she needed to win those matches,” noted Kohanski. “I think that she has held her own at singles and learned a lot from just being a singles player.”
The tandem of sophomore Jason Hawkins and freshman Jordyn Allen took sixth place in the first doubles bracket with a 0-2 record. The Ravens’ duo fell in the first round against Kyle Lamp and Vincent Xie from Akron Coventry and then lost 8-3 to Woodridge’s Augustine Shellenbarger and Amare Allen in the fifth-place match.
“They are both young and new to the sport,” said Kohnaski. “I think that they played pretty well in the first match and they may have lost it but it was close and they had a better and positive attitude. They were communicating but the other team had more experience than they did.”
The tandem of senior Ryan Hall and sophomore Trenton Turney went 0-1 in the second doubles bracket but still ended up in fifth place. Although the duo lost 6-1, 7-6 against Cloverleaf’s Drew Baltic and Ian Shultz, they were awarded fifth place on default because there were only five teams that qualified in the second doubles bracket.
“I was pretty impressed by them,” said Kohanksi. “They got to a tiebreaker in that second set and they had never played a tiebreaker before. I think overall they played well and that Cloverleaf team ended up getting third place so I think so that is not bad to go to a tiebreaker with a third-place team.”
The Ravens ended their regular season by beating Portage County rival Kent Roosevelt 3-2 in a home dual match on Friday.
Ravenna will end the week by competing in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division II sectional tournament at the Solon courts beginning on Tuesday at 8 a.m.
